‘This is about all of our futures – our lives, our quality of life, and that of our children. Keep it in that frame and you’re a lot closer to changing minds’
Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

Climate marches, raging and unseasonal bushfires, the Adani coal mine. It seems like climate change and global warming is a conversation that’s going to be hard to avoid this Christmas.

But some ways of talking are better than others. To help you prepare for difficult conversations here are five different ways you can try to talk about climate change, or anything else difficult and controversial, this holidays.

1. Just the facts

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Sure, you can throw intellectual spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks. But there are better options.

In a recent interview, professor of linguistics and cognitive science George Lakoff railed against “enlightenment reasoning”, which is the belief that “if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion”

“That just isn’t true,” Lakoff says. “People think in terms of conceptual structures called frames and metaphors. It’s not just the facts.”

Compelling stories steeped in emotion and backed with facts – that’s the way to talk about global warming.

2. Make it personal, and tell stories

Earlier this year the UN released a handbook for talking about climate change which recommends “telling a human story, talking about the real world, knowing what matters to the audience, and employing visual aids”.

Tell your family about the joint US and Australian firefighting efforts that have been running for 20 years but may be stopped because we are moving towards a “year round” fire season and will be too busy battling blazes at home to help anyone else.

The process of simply hearing what the person says is enough to defuse the emotional charge

3. Make it urgent

Chances are you’re not going to meet outright deniers this Christmas. The overwhelming majority of people believe in global warming – 73% of the Australian public at last count.

The problem is urgency. So make your conversations about the tangible present with solutions. This might mean talking about smaller things first so it doesn’t sound so big and difficult to deal with that it is overwhelming.

Firefighters working to control a bushfire in Deepwater, Central Queensland, 30 November 2018. Photograph: Qfes Media/PR IMAGE

4. Avoid refutations, and denialist framing

In the case that you do run into deniers, or denialist rhetoric, it’s important to resist the urge to repeat false claims while attempting to refute them.

I’ve written before about the downsides of acting as a publicist for views you disagree with. In short, it’s counterproductive and usually ends up strengthening the other side’s arguments. You want to avoid repeating claims – but by all means refute them forcefully.

Then there is framing. A frame is a theory that suggests that how something is presented to an audience can influence how people process that information.

Think about the “carbon tax”. This was either a failure or triumph of framing depending on how you look at it. The ETS was actually not a tax, in fact, as this article explains, it’s kind of the opposite.

But still, it was framed as a tax. People don’t like taxes. Opposition built. Election were lost. The tax that was not a tax was scrapped.

We can learn from this.

In 2003 Republican consultant Frank Luntz laid out the climate strategy used by conservatives for the last 15 years. This was leaked in a memo and included advice such as using the term “climate change” instead of “global warming” because it sounded more natural and less alarming. This has led to the often repeated “climate is always changing” argument.

To counter this framing you have to not engage with it but to push a different, more compelling, frame – Lakoff suggests “climate crisis” but global warming also works.

This is about all of our futures – our lives, our quality of life, and that of our children. Keep it in that frame and you’re a lot closer to changing minds.

5. If all else fails get non-violent

Non-violent communication (NVC) is a methodology created by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg as a way to bridge communication divides by focusing on universal human needs.

While it sounds quite touchy-feely, it is used by everyone from companies to personal therapists, and even hostage negotiators. NVC is all about listening, repeating, asking questions, and thinking about what needs are being expressed.

You begin with neutral observation and repetition. These conversations can degenerate to yelling matches without people even realising what the other is trying to say.

If someone tells you “climate change is natural” and that they’re sick of alarmists, NVC advises repeating back “I’m hearing you say that what’s happening is normal and people are exaggerating the dangers, is that right”.

In conversations that can quickly devolve into sloganistic shouting the process of simply hearing what the person says is enough to defuse the emotional charge.

The second step is to talk about emotions rather than policy positions or facts, which should sound familiar by now.

If someone tells you they are sick of the “climate change cult” and “lying scientists”, ask them what they are feeling rather than arguing about something they are already upset about.

Do they feel confused, angry, overwhelmed, incredulous? Talking about the feeling behind the statement and your own feelings can help you start to see things from each others perspective, as long as you are doing it respectfully.

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That’s a lot of talking about feelings but I assure you, this is effective – you can probably see now why I brought up hostage negotiations at the start.